This article contains themes of death, suicide and grief.

In 2009, I joined a group of men. We are not a select group, although we are often a secretive one.

To my knowledge, no one has conducted a count of our membership, yet we have members worldwide.

We are the fathers whose children have died.

Sixteen years after becoming a member of this group, I now speak not only to share my pain but to reach out to others who carry similar losses, as I once longed for someone to reach out to me.

I speak my pain, not for your sympathy or even empathy. These are the gifts you give me because of your own discomfort when I mention Matthew’s name. Your sympathy and your empathy are your gifts given in silent relief that your children are alive. I understand because before Matthew died, I gave the same gifts to fathers who had buried their children.

I speak my pain for the fathers who have buried their sons, their daughters. Fathers who are men of sorrows and acquainted with grief. Fathers who are reluctant or cannot find a safe space to share the intimacy of grief.

The intimacy of grief

When our children die before us, our love transforms into the intimacy of grief. Grief and love are opposite sides of the same coin. To the extent we loved, we will grieve. When we understand that grief and love are interconnected, we can move from wanting to get rid of the pain of grief to accepting its presence.

One of the lessons I have learned over the last years is that my grief is the painful echo of my love for Matthew. As I loved him in life, my grief honours him in his death.

Grief is intimate because it becomes my close companion. I use the term “my” close companion deliberately because how I experience the grief of Matthew’s death is unique to me, just as your grief is unique to you.

My grief over Matthew’s passing was different from the grief of my ex-wife. While at one level we could support one another, at another level, my grief was my grief; it was my close companion with whom I had a torturous relationship until I learnt to make space and befriend it.

Befriend grief? I hear you ask.

In Western thinking, we want to deal with grief, we want to go through the stage of grief and resolve it and then put it behind us. We don’t want to befriend it. There are some griefs we can resolve and move beyond. However, I have found healing in the befriending of my grief for Matthew, my son.

Grief and the intimacy of friendship.

Like any friendship, befriending grief takes time.

Grief is, at best, a prickly friend. It is the friend who barges their way into your day and disrupts it at the most inconvenient times. It is the friend who will as gladly punch you in the gut and leave you gasping with emotion, while at other times caress you with gentle reminiscences.

It is a friend who, in the early days, will incapacitate you and leave you feeling numb. It is the friend who, as I am discovering, 16 years into our ‘friendship’, continues to visit me in new and different ways. There are days and weeks when tears lie close to the surface, as they did in the early days of Matthew’s death. There is the psychic tiredness that creeps in from carrying the weight of Matthew’s loss. There is a saying that grief doesn’t diminish with time; it’s just that we grow strong enough to carry our grief. While that may be true, I still experience a psychic tiredness from carrying the grief. I am also aware of a vulnerability that I didn’t have before 18 February 2009, the day Matthew died.

Grief and the intimacy of vulnerability.

As a generalisation, men do not like to be vulnerable. Most of us have been trained from our early days not to show vulnerability. We have learnt to hide any sense of being vulnerable.

The death of our child mocks our desire to be strong and leaves us vulnerable and wounded. The grief of our child’s death takes a battering ram to our belief that it is unmanly to show emotions. As fathers, we must learn to live with the closeness, the intimacy of vulnerability, for grief brings us to our knees and is uncaring of our need to appear as if we’re keeping it together.

And yet,

It is in the vulnerability of our grief that we discover the lie we were told growing up and so often believe. The lie that real men do not show vulnerability or weakness.

It is in our vulnerability that we discover our strength. Yes, we are fathers who are wounded by the death of our children. Yes, we are fathers who are grappling our way through grief, trying to make sense in a world that often makes no sense, and despite it all, our grief is a testament to our love for our child.

Our grief, as painful as it is, is the demonstration of our love for our children, and that is our strength.

Sadly, for many of us, rather than recognising the strength of our vulnerability, we choke on our grief.

Choking on our Grief.

Grief is both a friend we learn to live with and a presence that can choke us when we try to silence it. These images may seem at odds, but both are true—grief is complex, contradictory, and deeply human.

This is our reality. Many of us choke on our grief for valid and good reasons.

• The pain is too intense.
• Our sense of the world has shifted on its axis. There is a chasm in my sense of time and the world. I know Matthew died sixteen years ago, but it doesn’t feel like sixteen. I feel trapped in a time warp.
• There is the pain that I could not keep my son alive. I know I did my best. Psychologists and counsellors tell me I do not need to feel guilty. They are correct, but their correctness cannot reach the deeper truth of my longing. I believe them. And yet, in my darkest moments, I still feel guilt that my love wasn’t enough to keep Matthew in this world
• How can we talk of our grief after sixteen years, or six years or twenty-six? The world moves on, our lives move on and yet!

Yes, there are valid reasons why we choke on our grief.

Personal experience of choking on my grief

When I choked on my grief, two things happened.

I started to entertain thoughts of suicide. I am not the first father who has had suicidal thoughts as a result of their child’s death.

The second thing that happened was that my grief slid into depression.

Grief can often present as depression, but healthy grief is different to depression. However, when we choke on our grief and do not befriend it, it can often result in depression.

Choking on my grief only complicated the grief and the grieving journey.

Over two to three years, I clawed my way out of depression to resume the journey of grief, and in resuming my journey, I learned two things.

Firstly, I learned that rather than choking on my grief, I had to befriend it. I had to learn to develop the intimacy of friendship with my grief.

Secondly, I have had to learn and continue to learn my vulnerability. I have had to learn to accept the times I cry in public when I talk about Matthew. I have had to learn to accept that there are certain situations and topics that I cannot sit through or engage with because they trigger me. I am continuing to learn my vulnerability because once I loved my son when he was in this life, and now my grief and my vulnerability are the signs of my continuing love for him, that he is no longer physically present.

To Grieving Fathers

I came across a post on Facebook with the following quote attributed to Jim Carey.

Grief is not a burden to be hidden. It is not a weakness to be ashamed of. It is the deepest proof that love existed, that something beautiful once touched your life. So let yourself feel it. Let yourself mourn. Let yourself remember.

There is no timeline, no “right” way to grieve. Some days will be heavy, and some will feel lighter. Some moments will bring unexpected waves of sadness, while others will fill you with gratitude for the love you were lucky enough to experience.

Honor your grief, for it is sacred. It is a testament to the depth of your heart. And in time, through the pain, you will find healing—not because you have forgotten, but because you have learned how to carry both love and loss together.

Honour your grief, for it is sacred. Do not choke on your grief and stifle the pain and vulnerability.

Your vulnerability is your strength. You can carry both love and loss together.

I have committed myself to mentoring men who are grieving. What do I mean by that?

When I was in the midst of my most intense grief, I wanted a man who had the strength to sit with me; to witness my grief and remind me of my strength. What I found were well-intentioned men who wanted to talk, to give me simple answers and offer hope that I would pull myself together quickly for their sake.

Grieving the loss of a child is life-changing and ongoing. Having been there, I offer a mentoring service to fathers.